fzm - Fuzzy Manpager

A beautiful interactive terminal manpage viewer with fuzzy finding capabilities. fzm enhances your manpage browsing experience with intuitive search, rich previews, and seamless integration with other documentation tools.

✨ Features

🔍 Smart Search & Navigation

• Fuzzy Finding: Intuitive search through all available manpages using fzf
• Multiple Search Modes:
  • Fuzzy search with partial matching
  • Exact match with single quotes
  • Multi-term AND search
  • Prefix/suffix matching
  • Exclusion with !term
• Interactive Preview: Real-time manpage preview with syntax highlighting
• Toggleable Preview Window: Show/hide preview pane with Ctrl-Space or Ctrl-P

📖 Enhanced Documentation

• TLDR Integration: Combine manpages with practical examples from tldr
• Syntax Highlighting: Beautiful code highlighting using bat (when available)
• Smart Wrapping: Proper text wrapping in preview panes
• Section Headers: Clear visual separation between examples and full documentation

🎨 Rich Interface

• Beautiful Colors: Custom color scheme with optimal contrast
• Interactive Controls:
  • Scroll preview with Ctrl-D/Ctrl-U (half page) and Ctrl-F/Ctrl-B (full page)
  • Resize preview pane with Alt-Up/Alt-Down
  • Toggle text wrapping with Alt-W
  • Change sort order with Ctrl-R
• Visual Borders: Clean, rounded borders and section separators
• Responsive Layout: Adapts to terminal size and preferences

⚡ Performance & Integration

• Fast Startup: Optimized for quick access to documentation
• Direct Access: Pass commands directly for instant manpage viewing
• Seamless Fallbacks: Graceful degradation when optional tools are missing
• Alias-Friendly: Easy to integrate as man replacement

🚀 Quick Start

Basic Usage

# Browse all manpages interactively
fzm

# Open specific command directly
fzm ssh

# Browse with tldr examples
fzm -e

Installation

1. Ensure dependencies are installed:

# Required
sudo apt install fzf man-db  # Ubuntu/Debian
brew install fzf             # macOS

# Optional (for enhanced experience)
sudo apt install bat tldr    # Ubuntu/Debian
brew install bat tldr        # macOS

2. Download the script and make it executable:

curl -o fzm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stefan-hacks/fzm/main/fzm.sh
chmod +x fzm.sh
sudo mv fzm.sh /usr/local/bin/fzm

Shell Integration

Add to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

# Replace standard man with fzm
alias man='fzm'

# Quick access to examples
alias mane='fzm -e'

# Keep original man command
alias oman='/usr/bin/man'

⌨️ Interactive Controls

Key Binding	Action
Enter	Open selected manpage
Ctrl-Space / Ctrl-P	Toggle preview window
Ctrl-D / Ctrl-U	Scroll preview down/up (half page)
Ctrl-F / Ctrl-B	Scroll preview down/up (full page)
Alt-Up / Alt-Down	Resize preview pane
Alt-W	Toggle preview text wrapping
Ctrl-R	Toggle sort order
Ctrl-A	Select all items
Esc	Exit without opening

📚 Search Tips

• Fuzzy Search: Just type parts of the command name
• Exact Match: Use single quotes: 'command'
• Multi-word: Space-separated terms (AND search)
• Prefix/Suffix: ^prefix or suffix$
• Exclusion: !term to exclude matches

🛠️ Dependencies

Required

• fzf: Fuzzy finder (installation)
• man: Manual page viewer (usually pre-installed)

Optional

• bat: Syntax highlighting (installation)
• tldr: Practical examples (installation)

🎯 Use Cases

### For Learning
```bash
# Discover new commands
fzm

# Learn with examples
fzm -e

🔧 Advanced Configuration

Environment Variables

The script respects standard environment variables:

• MANWIDTH: Control manpage width
• MANPAGER: Custom manpage viewer

Custom Preview Size

Cycle through preview sizes: 35% → 50% → 65% → 80%

Color Customization

The script includes a custom color scheme that works with most terminal themes.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit pull requests for:

• Bug fixes
• New features
• Documentation improvements
• Performance optimizations

📄 License

This project is open source. Feel free to use and modify as needed.

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fzm - Making manpages beautiful and accessible since 2024. ✨